“Do you like it?” Livia asked.
“Mm-hmm,” was all he said, not wanting to give her the satisfaction. And he added: “It’s cold in here.”
“I’ll go and turn on the heat. You’ll see, in ten minutes you’ll be just fine. Meanwhile, I’ll go and get you one of Matteo’s heavy jackets.”
One of Castellini’s jackets? He would rather freeze to death.
“No, no, it’s all right. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
And indeed, a minute later he was fine. And an hour after that, he even sated the wolflike appetite the fresh air and climb had stirred up, emptying practically half of the refrigerator. Then they settled into the comfortable couch and Livia turned on the TV. By mutual consent, they decided to watch an American movie about a rich landowner in the South with a twenty-year-old daughter who was in love with one of the farmhands, which the father didn’t appreciate one bit. Montalbano immediately fell asleep on Livia’s shoulder, and when, ninety minutes later, she got up to turn off the television, he collapsed sideways on the couch, waking up in confusion.
“I’m going to bed. Thanks for the lovely evening,” Livia said sarcastically, starting up the stairs towards the bedroom.
He slept for seven hours straight, waking up in the same position he’d lain down in. Beside him, Livia appeared to have every intention of traveling a good deal more through ever new and scattered lands in the country of sleep. He got up, went downstairs, made a pot of coffee, took a shower, got dressed, opened the front door, and went outside. Without warning, he found himself inside an almost pitilessly beautiful day, with violent colors, blinding snow, and Mont Blanc looming so vast over his head that he felt slightly afraid. Then, at once, the stabbing cold attacked him, its frigid blades cutting his face, neck, and hands. Pulling himself together, he went behind the house, stopping under the bedroom balcony. A few yards away was a path that went up the side of the mountain and quickly vanished amidst the trees. It was a sort of invitation, and Montalbano, for no apparent reason, decided to accept it. Going back inside, he tiptoed into Matteo and Stefania’s bedroom, opened the armoire, grabbed a parka and a heavier sweater, put them on, took a pair of hiking boots from a shoe rack, put these on, went back downstairs into the kitchen, and wrote a note for Livia: I’ve gone out for a walk. Then he put a sort of giant sock of heavy wool over his head and went out, locking the door behind him. Before heading off, he made sure he had his cigarettes and lighter in the parka’s pocket. In the other pocket was a pair of gloves, which he put on.
After walking for about half an hour, feeling his lungs expand with each step, he found himself before a fork in the path and decided to turn right. He knew he was climbing, but he didn’t feel tired. On the contrary, he felt a sort of increasing weightlessness, a lightness of body and mind. There were no more trees, only rock. At a certain point he sat down on a boulder before heading round a bend in the trail. He wanted to enjoy the view. Sticking a hand in his pocket, he pulled out the pack of cigarettes, lit one, took two puffs, then put it out. He didn’t feel like smoking. Glancing at his watch, he gave a start. He’d been walking for an hour and a half without realizing it. He thought it best to go back. Livia might get worried if he was late. But before beginning his descent, he decided to go just a little bit farther, past the bend that hid part of the landscape from view. And suddenly everything changed. Here the mountain appeared as it really was: rough, hard, and so harsh as to inspire a sort of fearful respect. The path became more arduous, squeezed as it was between a wall of rock and a sheer drop of dizzying height. Montalbano didn’t suffer from vertigo, but at once, at the mere sight of the void before him, he instinctively recoiled against the rock face. Leaning back against the stone, he looked out over the mountaintops, down at the houses in the valley, which looked like little dice, at the snaking river disappearing and reemerging behind the rises in the landscape. It certainly was beautiful, as far as that went, no doubt about it. But he felt rather out of place, like an awkward alien bewildered by a world not his own. He turned about to go back round the bend and head home, but suddenly stopped. He thought he’d heard a human voice. Though he hadn’t understood what the voice was saying, he’d grasped a sort of desperate tone in it. He pricked up his ears, all tense.
“. . . elll . . . lp!”
He turned back around. And heard the voice again.
“. . . ellllp! . . . elllp!”
He took three steps forward, certain that the voice was coming from somewhere around the sheer drop. Carefully approaching the edge of the path, he stuck his head out to look. Some twenty yards ahead, just below the trail, the rock jutted out, forming a sort of tiny bank over the abyss. And there, lying belly down, was a person, head hidden by his parka, making it impossible to tell whether it was a man or woman, holding a woman by the wrists, to keep her from plummeting into the void. Luckily the woman had managed to wedge her left foot into a crack in the rock face; otherwise the person holding her would not have been able to keep it up for very long. The scene immediately appeared so tragic to Montalbano that it seemed unreal, to the point that he was about to look around to see where the floodlights and movie cameras were placed. And without him realizing it, in a flash his legs brought him to a spot directly above the two unfortunate souls, where he noticed some five or six stairs cut directly into the rock; then he dashed down these and found himself behind the prostrate person. It was a man, and he’d heard the inspector come up behind him.
“Help,” he said.
He hardly had any voice left and, on top of that, his mouth was buried in his sweater and pressed against the ground.
“Can you hear me?” Montalbano asked, lying down beside him and removing his gloves. He looked down at the woman, whose eyes were squeezed shut. Her face had turned as white as the surrounding snow, and her lipstick was smeared, making her look like a clown.
“Hang on!” the inspector shouted to her.
The woman kept her eyes shut, and was as still as a statue. Montalbano dug himself firmly into the ground and said to the man:
“Now listen to me. I’m going to grab her left wrist with both hands. You do the same with her right wrist. Together we should be able to lift her up. Did you hear me? Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Montalbano grabbed her left wrist. The man let go and wrapped both hands around her right.
“Got a good grip?”
“Yes.”
“Now I’m going to start counting. At the count of three, we’re going to lift her up at the same time. Ready? One, two, three!”
Not an easy task to begin with, it was made more difficult by something the inspector hadn’t taken into account, which was that the woman, as soon as she felt herself being lifted up, stiffened instinctively, making herself heavier, terrified at finding herself dangling in the void and keeping her foot wedged in the crack in the rock. Montalbano and the man had to execute complicated maneuvers and counter-maneuvers while panting heavily and rapidly losing their breath. Among other things, the inspector was convinced that the man, exhausted from the strain, would suddenly let go. Would he manage all by himself to lift the woman, who luckily was rather petite?
By the grace of God, some fifteen minutes later they were all lying on their backs on the embankment. The woman was moaning weakly, having probably broken a few ribs, and still kept her eyes tightly shut. She was young, around thirty. The man, who looked about forty, was breathing with his mouth open and making a snoring sound. The clothes they had on were visibly high-end, designer stuff. Montalbano rolled over until he was at the girl’s side. Her face was still very white, the blood still having trouble returning.
“Signora, don’t be afraid. It’s all over. Open your eyes and look at me.”
Very slowly, the woman shook her head “no.” The man was staring at him, apparently still in no condition to move.
“Do you have a cell phone?”
Montalbano asked.
The man gestured towards the inside pocket of his parka. Montalbano unzipped it and grabbed the phone. But whom could he call? The man understood, asked for the phone back, propped himself up on one elbow, dialed a number, and started talking.
“Salvo!”
It was Livia’s voice. Montalbano felt overjoyed. Apparently it had all been a nightmare, and Livia was now waking him up. None of it was true; it was all a dream.
“Salvo!”
He looked up. Livia was on the footpath above, eyeing him, spellbound. Then she came down to the embankment in a single bound. She was wild-eyed and short of breath. The inspector quickly told her what had happened.
“Go back home. I’ll stay here with them.”
There was no way to make her change her mind.
“We’ll sort things out later,” she added, as Montalbano was walking away.
Back at the house, the inspector stripped down naked and took a shower to wash away the sweat on his skin. Then, without even bothering to put on his underpants, he sat down on the sofa, opened a brand-new bottle of whisky, determined to drink at least half of it.
He was still there when Livia returned four hours later. He’d drunk three quarters of the bottle.
“Stand up!”
“Yes, sir!” said Montalbano, standing at attention. The slap Livia dealt him sent him falling, stunned, back onto the couch.
“Why’d you do that?’ he asked, thick-tongued.
“Because you nearly scared me to death this morning when you didn’t come back. You’re an asshole!”
“I’m a hero! I saved—”
“Heroes can be assholes, too. And you’re one of them. Now go and get some sleep. I’ll wake you up later.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Their names are Silvio and Giulia Dalbono, they’ve been married five years, and have a house on the other side of the mountain. He owns a factory in Turin, but they come here whenever they can.”
Montalbano was savoring a sort of lard, at once subtle and strong, that melted the moment he put it between his tongue and palate.
“I talked to the husband while they were examining the woman, who has two broken ribs. They were out for a perfectly normal hike and she wanted to go out onto the ledge, where she inexplicably fell. It may have been a momentary malaise, or a dizzy spell, or maybe just a misstep. Fortunately she managed to grab the edge as she was falling, just enough so that her husband could grab her wrists. Then, of course, you came along. He asked me about you. Who you are, what you do. He was impressed by your calmness. I think he’s going to come by tomorrow to thank you. Are you listening to me?”
“Absolutely,” said Montalbano, slipping another slice of that sort of lard into his mouth.
Indignant, Livia fell silent. Not till the end of the meal did the inspector deign to ask a question.
“Has she opened her eyes?”
“Who?”
“Giulia. That’s her name, isn’t it? Has she opened her eyes?”
Livia gave him a look of surprise.
“How did you know? No, she won’t open her eyes. She refuses. The doctors say she’s still in shock.”
“I see.”
They sat down on the sofa.
“Feel like watching TV?”
“No.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I’ll show you in a second.”
When she understood Salvo’s intentions, Livia protested, but only halfheartedly.
“Let’s go upstairs at least . . .” she said.
“No, this is where you slapped me, and this is where you’ll expiate your sin.”
“Yes, sir,” said Livia.
The following morning he woke up at seven, and at eight he opened the door to go outside.
“Salvo!”
It was Livia, still in bed, calling him from upstairs. How could that be? Just ten minutes ago she was sleeping like a sack of potatoes!
“What is it?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going out for a little walk.”
“No! Wait, I’m coming with you. Just give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready.”
“All right, I’ll wait for you outside.”
“Don’t go far.”
He felt furious. She treated him like a silly child! He went out. The day looked like a duplicate of the previous one, crisp and dazzling. In the parking area stood a man, apparently waiting for him. He recognized him at once. It was Silvio Dalbono. He was unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes.
“How is your wife doing?”
“Much better, thank you. I spent the night at the hospital and came directly here. I was waiting for—”
“For her finally to open her eyes?”
The man gave him a look of amazement, opened his mouth, closed it again, and swallowed. He tried to smile.
“I knew you were a good detective, but that’s very impressive! How did you figure it out?”
“I didn’t figure anything out,” Montalbano said bluntly. “I only noticed two things that didn’t seem to make sense. The first was that your wife was obstinately keeping her eyes shut. At first, when we were holding her suspended over the void, I thought it was a kind of refusal to acknowledge the terrible situation she was in. But then she kept her eyes closed even after she was safe, and even in the hospital. And so I became convinced she was refusing to acknowledge your presence. The second thing was that when you were lying next to one another on the embankment, safe and sound at last, not only did you not embrace, you didn’t even touch one another.”
“Believe me, I certainly didn’t try to—”
“I believe you.”
“We’ve always walked past that ledge on our hikes. And yesterday morning, Giulia ran ahead, went down those few steps and then, as I was still on the path, I heard her cry out. She was gone. I went down, and that’s when I saw . . .”
He trailed off, dug a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, wiped away the profuse sweat glistening on his face. Then he resumed speaking, no longer looking the inspector in the eye.
“I saw her hands clutching a rocky spur along the edge. She called me once, then again, then a third time . . . I just stood there, silent, immobile, paralyzed. The solution was right in front of my eyes.”
“You wanted to take advantage of the situation to be rid of her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have another woman?”
“For the past two years.”
“Did your wife suspect it?”
“No, absolutely not. But at that moment, there, she finally understood. She understood because I didn’t answer her cry for help. Then she suddenly fell silent. It was . . . it was terrifying, that silence, unbearable. And that was when I ran and grabbed her wrists. We . . . looked at each other. Endlessly. And then, at a certain point, she closed her eyes. And so I . . .”
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Montalbano found himself back on the ledge over the sheer drop, and he saw the woman’s face again, desperate, looking up like somebody drowning . . . And for the first time in his life he felt a sense of vertigo.
“That’s enough,” he said gruffly.
The man stared at him, bewildered by the inspector’s tone.
“I just wanted to explain . . . to thank you . . .”
“There’s nothing to explain, nothing to thank me for. Go back to your wife. Good day.”
“Good day,” said the man.
He turned around and started descending the path.
It was true. Livia was right. He was afraid. Afraid to plunge into the “abysses of the human soul,” as that imbecile Matteo Castellini had put it. He was scared because he knew perfectly well that, once he’d reached the bottom of one of those sheer drops, he would inevitably find
a mirror. Reflecting his own face.
BETTER THE DARKNESS
1
At the crack of dawn, between sleep and waking, he’d distinctly heard the sound of water entering the storage tanks located on the roof of his little house in Marinella. Since the City of Vigàta deigned to bestow water on its citizens once every three days, the sound meant that Montalbano would again be able to take a proper shower. And in fact, after making coffee and reverently drinking his first cup, he rocketed into the bathroom and turned the water on full blast. He lathered himself up, rinsed, sang the entire triumphal march from Aida off-key, and as he was reaching for the towel the telephone rang. He ran out of the bathroom naked, dripping water all over the floor—which his housekeeper would make him pay for later, probably by not leaving any food for him in the fridge or the oven—and picked up the receiver. There was only a dial tone. Then why was the telephone still ringing? He suddenly realized it wasn’t the phone, but the doorbell. He looked at the clock on the shelf in the dining room: It wasn’t even eight a.m. yet. Who could be knocking at his front door at that hour if not one of his men from the station? For them to come and bother him this way, it must be something serious. He went and opened the door just as he was. And when the priest who was waiting outside saw him there naked, he leapt backwards, speechless.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” he said.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” the inspector echoed him, equally flummoxed, trying awkwardly to cover his pudenda with his left hand, which wasn’t enough.
The priest did not realize it, but despite the embarrassing situation, he’d already scored a point in his own favor in Montalbano’s eyes. Because the inspector couldn’t stand priests who dressed in civilian clothes, whether jeans and sweater or sport coat and trousers. It was as if they were trying to hide, to camouflage themselves. This one in the doorway, a slender, distinguished-looking man of about forty, was wearing a frock and looked like someone who knew what was what.
Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories Page 48
